Plug in, Baby
by vinnie2757
Summary: Subject 1776 has the key to finding the missing Pieces of Eden, but the race is on to beat the Templars to them. An Assassin's Creed AU


**Title: **Plug in, Baby

**Fandom: **_Hetalia: - Axis Powers_

**Author: **Vinnie2757 with input from tumblr ID; _miss-cutepatootie_

**Genre:** Adventure, with minor Sci-Fi, Romance, Humour, Angst, general _Assassin's Creed_-y-ness

**Characters/Pairing(s):** Consider almost everyone around, and consider almost any ship viable. It's going to be a surprise, okay?

**Rating: **Rated M for Mature

**Warnings:** Language, violence, sexual situations.

**Summary: **Subject 1776 has the key to finding the missing Pieces of Eden, but the race is on to beat the Templars to them.

**A/N: **God this is a piece of shit. Title from the _Muse _song. Notes at the end, as ever. Enjoy, my lovelies~!

**Plug in, Baby**

**Chapter One: Access the Animus**

The only thing brighter than the sun is the fire. It stretches across the outer limits of the village, catching on hay and heavy linens, smoke spiralling higher than the fortress that had stood guard on the mountaintop for several decades. Civilian lives have already been claimed by fire and steel both, but there has been no time to grant the corpses any dignity. They stay where they fell, for battle is sweeping through the streets and climbing closer to the fortress with every fallen brother.

On the southern side of the fortress, there is a tower that reaches high enough into the sky that to stand at its top was to reach into heaven itself. A man could feel like a God up there, looking out over the village and breathing in the whispers of life that rise forever, the well-practiced routine of one good deed. There are no good deeds today, only death and war and the endless, horrible darkness that clogs that whispering freshness. The smoke rises high enough to obscure the edges of the valley the village calls home, high enough to bring the smell of hay and wood and flesh to the noses of the two men standing in that tower.

One is oddly pale for his robes, skin darkened by the sun, but light of hair and eye. A European, from the furthest reaches of the old Roman Empire, a traitor to his people and a brother to his enemies. He is shorter than his companion by almost a head, older and wiser, but new to the world that has embraced him. It's a newness that has come too late, and the smoke curls deep in his lungs, makes him smile.

'Look at them fighting; it's total anarchy.'

His companion is a bright young thing, long limbs and long body, broad enough to fit his robes, every muscle wound tight under the sun-bleached linen. He's darker of colouring, native Arabic blood in his veins, clinging to the shadows on his jaw and under his eyes. He doesn't smile.

'I suppose. I wish they weren't.'

They are Assassins, native to the fortress, and though their brothers die beneath them, they remain where they are, standing on a ledge made of wood, one of several that juts out from the tower's lip, barely big enough for them both. The elder of the two stands at the narrower end, over the leap of faith that waits below, and carefully, he sits down, pats the wood next to him. He is still grinning down at the fire and the blood-wet steel shining in the sun. The men in armour are closer now, close enough that their shouts in foreign tongues are audible. They both understand them, the elder more so; it's his native language, after all.

'Take a seat; we might as well enjoy the peace while we can.'

The younger hesitates for a second, staring down at the top of his elder's head before sighing and taking a seat. Their legs dangle into the emptiness, and the wood is sun-warm, old, familiar and sturdy.

'What is peace whilst the Templar threat still exists?'

The elder doesn't miss a beat. 'A few moments with a loved one before the end,' he replies. 'Taking a few moments to remember all the ways you love them and knowing that theirs will be the last face you see. Knowing that in the end, your death means nothing. You are a soldier on the battlefield, and nothing more. You will not create or destroy with your death. You'll just love for the rest of eternity.'

The younger Assassin rakes a hand through his hair, his ears a little red. He scratches the back of his neck and tries to bite back a smile. It's not very successful.

'They're getting closer,' he says, for lack of anything better.

'Then you'd best hurry up, hadn't you?' the other replies, but his smile is softer now, directed to his companion, rather than the destruction.

Without a word, without a glance, they get to their feet.

'Which would you rather?' the older Assassin asks, 'Throw me into the hay, or leave me up here for the birds?' He leans out over the leap to look at the hay waiting at the bottom and then looks back with a crooked little grin.

'I'd rather not do it all,' the younger replies. 'But I have to. Master Romulus was right about you, and I should have listened.'

'Maybe you should have.' The shorter man shrugs, negligent and empty. 'But we're here now, and I still love you.'

'Don't say that. You're making it harder.'

When the older man raises his eyebrows, that same smile playing on the edge of his mouth, the younger punches him, a soft punch, fond almost.

'I'll never stop loving you,' the older says. 'No matter how many times this happens, no matter how many times we end up stood on this ledge, overlooking our home and watching it burn, I will always love you. Destiny's a fickle bitch, and she's made it clear that my path lies with you.'

'I'm sorry.'

'No, you're not.'

It's with great care that the younger of the two, tall and proud and with every inch as deadly as the next, draws his brother into his arms, one hand on the small of his back, the other on his cheek. It's the latter hand that moves, traces down his jaw, neck, over his robes to rest in the curve of his ribs. He readjusts his grip, and the older man remains still, docile and trusting. He's still smiling. The younger doesn't say a word, flexes his wrist and releases the hidden blade strapped to his forearm. It springs free, slides too-neat through layers of fabric and between ribs.

The older Assassin inhales, grins. The younger pulls him closer, buries his face in his neck, his hand wet with blood even as he keeps the blade lodged in his lung.

'Novice. Should have gone for my neck,' the European breathes, mouth forming the sounds against his killer's ear.

That same killer holds him close until he's dead, and waits until the sounds of battle are too close to ignore. The older Assassin's skin is sun-warm, blood cold and it spills out over his robes when he withdraws his blade, wound free of its plug. He carries the body inside and lays it on the floor, folds his arms across his chest, straightens the cloth and lines up the edges. He could be a statue. He stands there for a moment, looking down at the body of a brother, an ally and a friend, before turning smartly on his heel and taking the leap of faith at a sprint.

* * *

Alfred Franklin Jones wakes in 2012, covered in sweat and sobbing into his hands.

He shoves himself upright and scrapes at his eyes until he can see past the tears, fishes for his glasses and slaps them on. He's coltish, knees knocking and whole body uncooperative and ungainly as he gets to his feet and staggers to the bathroom. The light is almost blinding.

It doesn't much surprise him to see he's had another nosebleed, flaking rust and iron-red dried across his mouth and up his cheek. Mechanically, he goes about washing it off, and then he washes the blood off his hands. Or tries to, anyway.

It takes him two minutes to realise that the blood isn't real, and a further three to stop scrubbing. His knuckles are raw, more so than ever, pinpricks of blood catching under old scabs and between the cracks of dry skin stretched too tight. He pats his hands dry with a clean towel, and rubs some stupidly expensive moisturiser over them, already knowing he'll say the same thing as ever.

_Hey, it's cool, I got into a fight. It's no biggie. Just cleaning up the neighbourhood, y'know?_

His nose starts bleeding again. He sighs, rests his forehead against the mirror above the sink and watches the blood drip into the bowl for a few moments before closing his eyes.

Whilst not the first dream to have produced a physical reaction, it was definitely the first in which he'd killed someone he knew. He'd killed in his dreams before, fleeting images of knives in throats and backs, bodies in shadows and bloodied feathers. But they'd been strangers, names and faces alone. The dead had been targets, orders from a higher power, and he'd been carrying those orders out for no more reason than that was what did.

To have killed willingly – perhaps not willingly, he hadn't wanted to, but he'd _had_ to – so perhaps to have killed voluntarily. Still not right, but close enough, he reasons. It hadn't been an order to kill him, but it had been a sentiment shared between his brothers and mentor – Romulus, whoever that was – and he'd been the one to carry it out.

_Master Romulus was right about you, and I should have listened._

Just who was that guy? What had he done that deserved his death – his _murder_? Was it related to the Templar attack? That's who they were, weren't they? Those men in white coats and shining steel in their hands? They were Templar, and it had been the duty of his dream to kill them.

Then who was he?

He shakes his head, laughing at himself, and swipes his fingers across his nose.

Getting sleep is going to be impossible, so he might as well do something productive.

He sits for three hours in front of the French doors leading onto the balcony and watches the sun rise.

* * *

Alfred is nineteen, studying Physics at the Columbia University of New York, and he lives with a couple of people he doesn't really talk to. He doesn't particularly like them; they're real party animals, coming home drunk off their asses most nights, getting into all kinds of trouble they expect him to clean up and generally making nuisances of themselves. Alfred's all for fun and games, he enjoys a party, but he's not at university for that. He's at university to study, to get a decent degree and make something of his life.

His parents, of course, don't think he'll amount to anything, convinced he'll drop out and go running back to them within months. He's managed to survive for six months without them, he thinks he can manage a little while longer. They haven't bothered to call, and he's been steadily tightening his friendship group with each passing class.

The dream worries him, more than any of the others. There's a report going around, in the backwoods of the internet, that says Abstergo's looking for dreamers. Says if you have a certain type of dream, you need to watch out. If your dreams start bleeding – if you start thinking they're real, or if you literally start bleeding – you need to get out and go. Because Abstergo knows, and they're coming for you. Attached to the report was a list of people. All of them had apparently gone missing; Alfred had searched a couple, and there was nothing about them. Either they were being made up, which Alfred didn't doubt because this was the internet and it was full of shit, or these people had been wiped off the face of the earth.

Which was kind of terrifying.

Alfred doesn't _want_ to get out and go, but he's starting to think he might have to.

By the time he's ready to leave for his classes, his housemates haven't even come in from their night out. He makes sure the phone will route all calls to his cell, and then heads on out to a lecture on something he forgot to check but would probably involve a lot of numbers and hopefully some hand-outs. He's feeling a little woozy today, more so than normal, which he puts down to the dream. One of his classmates calls him on it, saying he looks like something the cat dragged in.

_Sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night._

His classmate laughs, and he goes through the lecture in a kind of daze, taking notes without taking them in, and it shows, later, when he looks at them, nothing written on the lines, diagrams muddled and ink smudged. He'll copy his friend's notes later.

He thinks he should probably call in sick to work; if he's walking into oncoming traffic, he's in no fit state to be pulling drinks. The union bar is all kinds of terrible, but at least his friends come by to have a chat whenever he's on shift.

_Hey, boss, sorry, I'm not feeling too hot. I'm goin' to have to call in sick._

His boss is cool with it, says she saw him earlier and says she thought he looked like shit. Had he been in a fight, his nose was bleeding again. He doesn't remember his nose bleeding, but he scratches his nails against his lip and they come away red, so figures it must have. He says he'll get it sorted. She says not to worry about coming in until he feels better.

_Don't push yourself, Al, you'll just make everything worse._

He hangs up and gets home to find his flatmates have made a mess. He dumps the take-away boxes in the bin, plucks the jeans off the lamp and goes into his room to try and get some sleep.

As soon as he closes his eyes, that face is there again. The one with the messy hair that's been flattened by a hood he never wears at the right time. There's a smattering of freckles across a sharp nose and high cheekbones, and though his face are neck are healthily tanned, below that it's pale, almost as white as his robes. Alfred's fingers fumble, shaking with something – adrenaline, perhaps, or maybe something baser – but he picks the fastenings free, pushes the fabric aside, brushes his fingertips along sweat-slick muscles unused to the desert heat, old scars raised in twisted white -

* * *

Falling does not feel like flying, and for a second, he thinks he's dying. The rush of air as he tumbles is enough to dry any tears that might have dared linger, and then he's spitting out mouthfuls of hay as he scrambles to get to his feet. His back is aching, and he's nicked himself with his throwing knives, but he has bigger problems than a few grazes.

On his toes, he dashes across the ledges linking cliff-face to cliff-face, and takes a flying leap down to the ground level at which the Templars were leading their assault. Even as he brings his knees up, he's unlocking his blade, flicking his wrist to release the mechanism, and it slides wet and silent into the jugular of the knight. The force of his leap sends them sprawling to the floor, and he has to leap and roll to get away from the swing of the next Templar enemy. As he gets to his feet, he shoves the hidden blade back into its setting, and draws his own blade. Damascus steel, well-loved and a familiar weight in his hand.

He parries blow after blow, ducking and strafing out of the way, countering when he gets an opening. Sword buried hilt-deep in a knight's stomach, he laughs victoriously.

_I will always love you_.

'I know,' he whispers, and ducks an overhanded swing of a broadsword, spinning up to return with his own measured back-stroke. 'I know.'

* * *

He wakes choking on his inhale. He slaps a hand over his eyes, blinded by the naked bulb in the ceiling and pants until his heartbeat steadies out. He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he supposes he must have. His mouth tastes like chemical death, so he rolls to his feet and staggers to the bathroom.

He walks into a wall instead of his door and realises he's not in his bedroom.

Forcing himself to adjust to the lighting and resigning himself to short-sighted blindness, he takes in sterile walls and white sheets, too clean and tidy and empty. If he didn't know better, he'd say he was in a hospital.

But he does know better.

He finds his glasses on a table by the bed, and looks around to find a far too familiar logo printed on almost everything.

_Abstergo. Of course._

It had been too good to last, he reasons, and tries the door. Locked, so he heads to the other side of the room, where the door slides away to reveal the bathroom, which is just as sterile as the bedroom. At least it's private, he thinks, and looks directly into a security camera.

_Ha, fuck you._

There are new toiletries in their packaging lined up on a counter, and he decides that they're probably meant for him anyway, so he doesn't feel too bad pulling the toothbrush and paste free to get the taste out of his mouth. He brushes until his gums are bleeding, and it doesn't really help with the taste, but at least it's better than chloroform. That's what it was, wasn't it? They'd knocked him out and dragged him in, and they must have been in the flat for a while to have got him unawares like that.

He examines his face in the mirror, tries to find any more evidence of bleeding, leans so close his breath fogs the glass and his nose touches his reflection, but all he can see are red veins in his sclera and purple smudges under his eyes. He's still there when the bedroom door slides open, and a man in a white coat stands there with his hands folded behind his back.

Alfred looks at him and the man looks back.

'Come on,' the man says, turns and walks out of the room and leaves Alfred alone.

He hastens to follow, and trips over the runner at the bottom of the door, out into another room. A big sort of room, as sterile as his apparent quarters, with white tiles and wide windows offered a somewhat dismal view of New York City.

'You could have got a better location,' he announces to the room.

In the centre, there's a machine he knows, that he's seen plastered all over the internet. The Animus, they call it. A virtual-reality machine that tapped into the user's genetic code to access memories. So it said, anyway, but he'd not seen how that kind of technology was even possible, let alone actually produced. There's a second man stood by it, typing at the computer hooked up to the console, and he snorts with laughter, looks up with the greenest eyes Alfred has ever seen before looking back at the computer.

'He has a point, it is a shitty location.'

The man in the white coat throws a pen at him, but he just catches it and lobs it back. Alfred stares at him; he hadn't even looked.

He types for a little while longer, leaving Alfred stood there looking ridiculous, and then he rounds the Animus to stand in front of him. He has to look up a little; he's not _short_, but Alfred's almost six-feet tall and it puts him almost a head taller.

'I assume you know where you are.'

'Abstergo.'

The man turns to look at the white coat. 'You said he was stupid.' The label of his sweater is sticking out and Alfred reaches to put it back, but he's already turned around. He gives Alfred's hand a suspicious glance before shrugging it off and carrying on.

'You've been brought in – in an unorthodox manner, and I apologise, I did try to make them do it neatly, but they're barbarians.'

'Kirkland,' the white coat warns.

Kirkland, as is apparently his name, laughs again, and steps back to the Animus, sets a gentle hand on it. 'We're going to plug you in,' he says, 'And you're going to relive some memories for us.'

'Why?' Alfred asks.

'Because you're a dreamer,' Kirkland tells him. 'You have bleeding dreams, and Abstergo's always on the lookout for bleeding dreamers. They always find them.'

Alfred can't be sure, but he thinks he just got winked at.

'But why? What do you want me to relive?'

The white coat huffs and crosses back to them from his desk on the other side of the room.

'That's quite enough chatter! Mr Jones, if you could get in the Animus, we can get a move on, we don't have all day.'

'It's nine in the morning,' Kirkland drawls, but steps out of the way and goes back to his computer.

Alfred hesitates, but sits down on the Animus anyway, because what else can he do, really? Kirkland rests a hand on his chest and pushes him back, settles his head on the rest and pats his cheek once before retreating and all but ignoring him.

Once, Alfred tries to talk to him, but Kirkland tells him to be quiet. A glass screen slides in a neat arc around his head, and a DNA strand is projected onto it.

Kirkland explains it with a simple, 'The more memories you relive, the more you can access. For now, we've got to go back to the beginning. Hold tight.'

White light sparks behind his eyes and he's lost.

* * *

Alfred wakes with a sharp inhale, sprawled out on his bed and with the sun warm on his skin. He isn't alone, but he knows he's safe, lets gentle fingers trace all of the lines of his scars, lets those same fingers tighten bandages and wash fever-sweat from his skin.

'You are so very, very lucky,' she tells him, and he smiles a little, blinks his eyes open.

Everything's a little blurry, but he finds her hand with his and traces her tendons.

'I've got someone to come home to,' he replies, and she laughs delightedly, slaps his hand.

'Behave!'

She finishes tending to him and gets to her feet. She's wearing the same robes that he wears, her cowl a little deeper and her robes a little sturdier to hide her shape, and with a subtle grin, she swishes out of the room and leaves him alone to try and remember what had happened to land him in his bed with a nurse in the first place.

He remembers blood, and he remembers steel, and the sun high in the sky on the rooftops of Damascus, but he doesn't remember much else. A younger man enters a little while later, whilst he's trying to buckle himself back into his equipment.

'The Master wants to see you,' he says, and Alfred nods.

'I'll be there soon,' he promises, and stands to settle his robes as best he can.

It takes longer than it should to cross the Citadel and get to the Master's library, where he's waiting with a stern look on his face. It's a rare enough expression that Alfred hesitates in the doorway.

'Master,' he says.

'Come in. There's trouble.'

There's always trouble, Alfred wants to say, but he goes to the desk all the same, and looks carefully at the map laid out there.

'What is it?' he asks, can make neither heads nor tails of it.

'Templars,' the Master replies with that bitterness of betrayal. He'd been a Templar, once, Alfred thinks. It was little more than a rumour, but his claiming the title of Master had been most unprecedented; no one had seen it coming. He'd been young at the time, if he'd been born at all. 'They come to attack our home again.'

'They're fools,' Alfred replies. 'Have they not learnt yet?'

'When do they ever learn?' the Master laughs, and points at the mark of Acre on the map, drags his finger to Damascus, to Jerusalem. 'They will fight for the cities, with their Teutonic and Hospitaller brothers.'

'Then we will fight with ours.'

_Why are they speaking in English?_

_Would you rather they spoke in Arabic?_

_No._

_Then there you go._

The Master moves from the desk to one of the bookcases, and from a box he plucks a feather. 'There is a man, in Damascus. Go speak to the Dai there, he will explain to you what needs to be done.'

'What is his name?'

The Master did not reply.

**++Fast Forwarding Memory++**

Damascus was a large, sprawling sort of city, spreading out under the shade of the mountains and inching towards the Barada river. Generally a low, cramped sort of place, spires and domes broke free to look out at the horizon and the river and the mountains, and it was atop one of the spires that Alfred perched, knees at his shoulders and hands braced on the slat beneath him, and he too looked out over the landscape.

The Dai had said that he was to kill a merchant prince, though he was more akin to a traitor. He was an exploiter, the Dai had said. He stole from the poor and killed the rich, and asked the impossible in exchange for the simplest of favours. The Dai had admitted that even without the Templar dealings, they'd probably have killed him anyway. It was something of a relief to Alfred, who hated to think that such a swine would be allowed to walk the streets of Damascus unpunished for his crimes had he not been seen brooking deals with the Templar presence.

He sat perched on the slat for some time, just examining the world below him, listening to the voices and sounds creeping up from below him. The skyline was his favourite place to sit and think, and sometimes he sat with his legs dangling into the nothing, just to relax and get away from it.

Being responsible for a man's fate was hard work, and any delay he could put on taking action was a delay he was willing to make.

Eventually, there was little else to do but take a dive into the emptiness below him, and for a moment he gathered his wits and checked his body over, safely hidden in the hay, and then he got to work.

**++Fast Forwarding Memory++**

His boots are so well worn that they don't make a sound, and he blends in with the crowd well enough that so long as he doesn't overreact, he can tail his target to the perfect kill spot without being found. It's a good thing too, since he's surrounded by Templar knights right now, and none of them would hesitate to kill him if they found the opportunity.

Whilst he walks, he unlocks the blade strapped to his arm, doesn't release it, and keeps his arm close to his chest. There's another few minutes of walking, and then, too easily, he pounces, leaping high enough to land on the merchant's back, pushing him down, and the blade slides between the vertebrae in his neck, slices through skin and muscle and rips through the jugular.

'There is no peace where you're going,' he snarls, rips the blade free, pauses to turn and listen. The Templar have heard the commotion of course, but Alfred is already moving, bounding up the wall and onto the roofs. He hides for almost ten minutes before picking off the few guards between him and the Assassin's den.

'He's dead,' he announces as he drops through the roof and steps into the building proper.

'So I hear,' the Dai replies.

The novice smiles sheepishly, and Alfred inclines his head, moves out of the way to let the young man and his feather through. Alfred sets his own down, watches the Dai's face for any objection to his methods.

'Was it a quick death?'

Alfred nods, watches the Dai put the feather away. 'Painless.'

'Good. No man, no matter how cruel, should have to die a painful death.'

'Perhaps not the Templars aids, but the Templar leaders must surely deserve to be hung by their tongues for the things they've done to this land.'

The Dai snorts. 'There are many things that have happened to this land that were not done by Templar hands. There is much for you to learn, and you will learn, in time. What did you learn from the merchant?'

Alfred paces as he talks, waves his hands and throws his hood back to ruffle sweat-damp hair. 'He is not alone in his alliance. There are others. He swore that the Assassins would lose their creed and fall under Templar leadership. These are all things I've overheard,' he adds. 'The merchant is not the only one. There are merchants like him in Acre and Jerusalem. And there are other allies in Damascus too.' He looks across at the Dai, wheels on one foot to look at him. 'Will you put the word out? I will return to Masyaf, and speak to the Master.'

The Dai nods. 'We are always listening,' he assures. 'But wait until the morning before you return. It is a long journey, and the Templar will be looking for you.'

Alfred nods, murmurs and agreement, and returns to the resting spot to do as it was intended.

* * *

'Why are we stopping?'

Kirkland laughs, and helps Alfred sit up. He's not looking, so Alfred gets to look long and hard at his profile, examine the sharp lines of his features and try to place them. British, yes, English, probably, but he's disorientated. Confused. He was in Syria, and now he's back in New York.

'In case you haven't noticed, the Animus is orange. It's over-heating. It can't take it. What, do you want to burn Alfred out before we've even begun like you did Eliza?'

'That was an isolated incident.'

Kirkland's nose wrinkles and his jaw sets and Alfred thinks he's scowling, but when he turns to look back at him, his expression is neutral at best.

'Isolated incident, my arse,' he grumbled under his breath, and helped Alfred get to his feet. 'Return to your room and get some rest,' he said then. 'It'll be tomorrow before the Animus is ready for you again, and you need your rest. You've got a headache, right?'

It's throbbing badly enough that he can barely see or hear, so he just nods and hopes he's at least facing the right direction. Something touches his face and he reels back, but Kirkland's got him in a tight grip.

'Stop that,' he says, and keeps dabbing at Alfred's lip. 'You're bleeding again.'

Alfred turns his head away but eventually lets Kirkland do what he likes and gets shepherded back into his bedroom. He's asleep less than a minute after he hits the bed.

* * *

For a while, Arthur Kirkland sits in the niche of Alfred's folded body, a hand in the boy's hair and carefully watching him. He has seen too many subjects die to let Alfred join them. He knows Alfred knows more than the others did, has been monitoring his internet and his life for several months prior to his pick-up. But then, of course he had, since Abstergo monitored everyone before choosing their subjects. Volunteering just wasn't what it used to be.

He sighs, shakily and as a little heavier than he'd intended to, smoothes his hand down Alfred's neck and arm.

'I'll get you out of here,' he promises quietly. 'I swear. Even if it kills me to do it. I won't let you become the same as the others.'

He remembers the blood strewn about the room out there, painted patterns and words in a language he doesn't speak any more. Oh, he remembers the final days of 1701, and he remembers the vicious backlash his negligence had cost Abstergo. It hadn't been negligence of course, it had played out almost exactly as he'd intended it to. He'd rather it hadn't been so messy, but at least he had someone where he needed someone to be. Still, a man had died on his watch, and it was his life being monitored now.

Too many people had died in Abstergo's name. He couldn't let Alfred become one of them, not now he'd finally got the boy where he needed him. Where he could keep an eye on him and keep him safe. He'd do everything he could, of course, to delay and keep Alfred sane, but there was only so much he'd be able to get away with.

'Please don't be as stupid as Abstergo thinks you are,' he said, and with one last brush of his hand through Alfred's hair, got to his feet and left him to sleep.

**++End Chapter++**

**Notes::**

The only **ship that won't be viable** is USUK. I'm telling you now, they aren't going to be a thing.

If you're paying attention, **1701** will be obvious as fuck.

There are huge liberties taken with canon here, but I'm trying to stay as close as I can. Mostly the liberties are taken with how Abstergo operates, but I don't really care either, so there's that.

Updates will be sporadic at best; it really depends on what kind of mood I'm in to what I'm writing, and I'm sorry I've not updated any other fic recently. It's hard when you don't ship your OTP anymore. It's hard and no one understands.

**++Vince++**


End file.
